Partnership. Curiosity. Professionalism.

I’ve worked in many different environments – from small marketing agencies where designers were kept insulated from stakeholders to large companies with mature agile processes where scrum teams work tightly knit. I’ve driven daily commutes to company offices and worked remotely for companies with a global workforce. Everything I’ve experienced shapes my creative approach and emotional intelligence as a professional.

While I can’t provide an exhaustive list of my personality and work ethic (after all, that’s what interviews are for, right?), I want to share a few key phrases I live by to give you some idea of what it’s like with me on your team.

The business has needs too.

Often, creative professionals fall into the trap of focusing wholly on users’ needs while ignoring the needs of the business sponsoring the effort. As a result, a rift grows between the business unit and the design organization, as if the two speak a different language.

I don’t work this way. Success requires fulfilling business goals as much as creating something that delights customers. I understand what drives managers and stakeholders, the importance of results, meeting KPIs, establishing and working within set requirements, and avoiding scope creep. I approach product owners, project management, and business analysts with a partnership mindset. We’re all on the same team. This leads me to my following phrase:

Assume positive intention.

While communication itself is important, communicating with clarity, honesty, and integrity is paramount. Whether working for a small business or a large corporation, being a designer means I intersect daily with coworkers from a variety of different disciplines—product owners, back-end developers, solution leads, and testers. Even in the best of times, friction happens. How you react makes the difference.

It’s easy to take it personally – to interpret pushback from a project manager as an attack on your judgment or to wrinkle your nose when told “no” by the solution lead. I navigate bumps unruffled by always assuming positive intent, even in those moments of friction. In a professional project-driven environment, teammates come from different backgrounds, skill sets, priorities, and perspectives. Pushback is rarely personal, and it’s essential to trust your teammate’s concerns, decision-making, and criticisms. This becomes easier when you:

Start from curious.

Suspend all and any assumptions about any specific situation, individual, or decision. Approach every new thing with a mindset of calm curiosity. Be neutral, like a detective gathering information or a child full of blind positivity and wonder. Ask probing questions to get to the heart of the request. As imaginative as we are, creative professionals risk living in our headspace, growing roots in our own perspective. However, in a work environment, collaboration with our teammates and partners means stepping outside of our preconceived notions, respecting the expertise of our peers, and validating their perspectives while working to better understand them.

These aren’t just sayings–they’re concepts I live by. Being a good work partner means a lot to me. It guides my behavior. Having a positive, healthy professional outlook benefits me, my coworkers, our company, each project as it comes into focus, and ultimately–our users.